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Wednesday, 19 August 2009

Those of you who heard Thinking Allowed yesterday will know that H4S member Tom Rees has shown in an academic paper that people in unequal societies are more religious than those in more equal ones, eg Americans are more religious than Swedes. Tom has built a statistical model that explains 60% of the variation in religiosity between countries. Inequality (and not, for instance, affluence) is the most important explanatory factor in this model.

That's academically interesting but what does it mean for humanists?

First, it confirms the humanist view that religion is a social phenomenon. It can be studied by psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists. Tom's research refines the older modernisation theory; that is, the idea that modern ideas and lifestyles undermine religious belief and practice. It shows that this happens because modernisation reduces inequality and, through social security and state medical services, personal insecurity. This links the high level of religious practice in the US with the weakness of its social security, Medicare and Medicaid services. Perhaps that's why fundamentalist US churches are so hostile to 'socialised medicine'!

Now this doesn't disprove the theological claims of religions but it does discredit the idea that the churches show God's working in the world. You would hardly expect God to be less active in Europe than the USA or to have become less active during the 20th century. (Then again, the ways of the Almighty are said to be mysterious ... though mostly by people who think they understand them!)

Second the research also refutes the so-called rational choice theory favoured by some American theorists. This theory claims that people have an innate need for religion and that differences in actual practice reflect differences in the effectiveness of religious organisations in marketing their services. Put crudely, these theorists believe that US churches are more successful than European ones because they are better at marketing. However the research shows that this theory "has no independent power to explain differences in religiosity across this international sample". This is academic-speak for "it's wrong". There is thus no reason to think that people have an innateneed for religion (though they clearly have an innate capacity for it).

Third, the research confirms earlier findings that passionate dualism, ie strong belief in God, Hell and the Devil, is correlated with homicide rates. Now Hell and the Devil are violent ideas so it's very likely that it's these beliefs make people more violent, rather than vice versa. The prevalence of passionate dualism explains 25% of the international variation in homicide rates.

So the research shows religion to be a human response to difficult social conditions. Faced with the threats of an unequal society people seek the consolations of religion ('pie in the sky when you die') and the support of a religious community (pie on the table when you get sick). But it's also consistent with the view that religious belief contributes to those threats. Passionate dualism leads to murder whilst the absolutism of religious moralising blocks efforts to improve society. For instance, abstinence-only sex education inspired by American Christians contributes to rates of abortion and sexuallly-transmitted dieases.

In relation to social insecurity, religion is probably as much cause as consolation.

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About Humanists4Science (Hum4Sci)

Humanists4Science (H4S) Mission "To promote, within the humanist community, the application of the scientific method to issues of concern to broader society."

H4S Vision "A world in which important decisions are made by applying the scientific method to evidence rather than according to superstition."

H4S isfor humanists with an active interest in science.We believe that science is a fundamental part of humanism but also that it should be directed to humane and ethical ends. Science is, in our view, more a method than a body of facts.

H4S take a naturalistic view and believe, like 62% of the UK population, that science, the scientific method & other evidence provides the best way to understand the universe.

Since 2008 H4S members have discussed many Humanist-Science topics in our Yahoo Group.

Jim Al-Khalili (BHA President)

Prof. Jim Al-Khalili - 11TH BHA President - On Scientific Method

'I have a rational unshakeable conviction that our universe is understandable, that mysteries are only mysteries because we have yet to figure out, the almost always logical answers. For me there is simply no room, no need, for a supernatural divine being to fill in the gaps in our understanding. We’ll get there, we’ll fill in those gaps with objective scientific truths: [with] answers that aren't subjective, because of cultural or historical whims or personal biases, but because of empirically testable and reproducible truths. We may not get the full picture, we may never get the full picture, but science allows us to get ever closer.’ Jim Al-Khalili, BHA AGM 2013

"A lot of people say science is just one way of looking at the world, at reality, and poets and musicians and, of course, people of faith, have said there are other ways. I don't buy that. For me there is an objective reality that is there and real. For a theoretical physicist who's trained in thinking about quantum mechanics, which involves the idea that by observing something you alter its nature, you have to have some sort of working definitions of reality"Jim Al-Khalili in New Humanist magazine Mar Apr 2013

Lord Taverne

Dick Taverne

Lord Taverne

Science depends on reason and regard for evidence. For me, the scientific approach lies at the heart of humanism as well as atheism. We all accept that science has made us healthier and wealthier. What has been seldom acknowledged or realised is that since the Enlightenment, which it helped to bring about, science has played an essential part in making us more civilised.

Science is the enemy of autocracy because it replaces claims to truth based on authority with those based on evidence and because it depends on the criticism of established ideas. Scientific knowledge is the enemy of dogma and ideologies and makes us more tolerant because it is tentative and provisional and does not deal in certainties. It is the most effective way of learning about the physical world and therefore erodes superstition, ignorance and prejudice, which have been causes of the denial of human rights throughout history. Science is also the enemy of narrow nationalism and tribalism and, like the arts, is one of the activities in this world that is not motivated by greed.

What can compare, for example, with the recent achievement of the Large Hadron Collider, a venture of collaboration by 10,000 scientists and engineers from 113 countries, free from bureaucratic and political interference? Those people put aside all national, political, religious and cultural differences in pursuit of truth and for the one purpose of exploring and understanding the natural world.

Without the contribution of science, which is, in my view, the rock on which atheism and humanism are built, we would be less inclined to be critical, tolerant and understanding and more prone to prejudice, bigotry and tribalism. We would be a less civilised society.

David Papineau on Materialism

'Our world is a fully material world. We don’t need to go outside Physics to understand the constitution of the Universe. Anything non-material would be epiphenomena and could never have any effect on the material world.' David Papineau (video) on Materialism

Richard Dawkins (BHA Vice-President) on Scientific Method

'Scientific method is a system whereby working assumptions may be falsified by recourse to reason and evidence.' (Photo: Chris Street, 2006)

Peter Atkins (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'The scientific method is the only reliable method of achieving knowledge. It displaces ignorance without destroying wonder.'

'Science can deal with all the serious questions that have troubled mankind for millennia' Peter Atkins

'My own faith, my scientific faith, is that there is nothing that the scientific method cannot illuminate and elucidate." Peter Atkins

Stephen Fry (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Reason is almost akin to superstition, ... reason must be tested, testing is the very basis of science.'

Matt Ridley (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Science is not a catalogue of facts, but a search for new mysteries. Science increases the store of wonder and mystery in the world; it does not erode it.'

Stephen Law (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Empirical science is possibly the only tool ... for understanding the world around us'.

Lewis Wolpert (BHA Vice President) on Scientific Method

'Science is the best way to understand the world, for any set of observations, there is only one correct explanation. Science is value-free, as it explains the world as it is. Ethical issues arise only when science is applied to technology – from medicine to industry.'

Harry Kroto (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'The methods of science are manifestly effective, having made massive humanitarian contributions to society. It is this very effectiveness which the purveyors of mystical philosophies attack, because they recognise in it the chief threat to the belief-based source of their power and financial reward.'